Commissioners appropriate $48k to BOE

By Wayne Allen

August 26, 2014

By Wayne Allen

tallen@civitasmedia.com

On Tuesday morning the Scioto County Commissioners appropriated $48,000 to the Scioto County Board of Elections (BOE). The money was appropriated as $23,000 to pay poll workers and $25,000 for supplies for the upcoming general election.

Officials with the BOE recently met with the commissioners and requested $93,000 to fund the office and its operations through the rest of the year, including paying for the upcoming general election.

“They (BOE) have a certain amount of money they have to have for poll workers and stuff for the upcoming election. They don’t have what they need in their budget,” said Mike Crabtree Chairman of the Scioto County Commissioners. “They have some money in the budget, but they don’t have enough to cover it (total cost of general election, training and operations through the rest of the year).”

When asked if the commissioners were going to give them the requested money Crabtree said, “we’re not going to give them $93,000 right now. We’re going to give them whatever we can do to carry them through until later. I would say by the end of the year it’s going to have to be made up somehow.”

Crabtree commented the county will received amended certificates that estimate county revenue throughout the year. Crabtree eluted if revenues are on the increase they may be able to make the difference that way.

Randy Basham, Chairman of the Scioto County Board of Elections said the requested money would pay for the necessary training and fund the general election.

“At our last board meeting three weeks ago, the board members wanted the girls to go back to the county commissioners for funding to conduct the election. Ever since they’ve been in fiscal emergency status we’ve always been back and forth (on budget issues). Now since they are out (of Fiscal emergency status), we’re hoping when the request is made it’s expedited,” Basham said. “The Secretary of State has ordered all board of elections poll workers be trained. This is usually an off year, where just the presiding judges receive training, but since some of the laws have changed they want everyone trained.”

Crabtree said for the short term the board of elections are going to transfer some money from different accounts.

At a meeting on Monday the BOE passed legislation authorizing the hiring of 308 poll workers for the general election on Sept.1 contingent on the money being available.

“We’re required to hire poll workers by a September date, but we won’t have a meeting before that date. We are going to hire poll workers (Monday) today. In order to hire the poll workers we have to have the funds available to pay them. What we are going to do in the meeting today is hire the poll workers upon the date the money is available,” Julia Gearheart, Director of the Scioto County Board of Elections said.

She said of the $93,000 request, $30,000 would be used to pay poll workers along with some funding the board of elections has.

Wayne Allen can be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 1933 or on Twitter @WayneallenPDT